Heh.

My wife wants a Toyota, but we have them at work and the ones there have really awful air conditioning units. I'm used to the one on my dodge that will freeze me out if I set it low enough, whereas the ones on the Toyota Tacomas at work only make it bearable rather than comfortable during the summer.

Recalls? How many cars have had problems and how many have been sold? It's not the worst problem ever. From the sounds of it though, Toyota keeps trying to find the cheapest of the possible reasons that could be causing the problem. Floor mat first, then maybe the pedal is stuck. From the descriptions though, when it happens the brakes don't work either. If they're doing drive-by-wire, it makes me think that maybe the break/gas pedal assembly has lost communications with the main computer, and the main computer is using very poor defaults for it. What model year did this start in? If it was the 2005 model year, it could have been because the US government mandated a new serial bus to be used to talk between different components in the car...

If I had a Toyota, I would make sure the emergency brake was a fully functional mechanical system and not a drive-by-wire setup.

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To the best of my knowledge, the emergency brake is a fully mechanical system on all cars.

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First, sorry for the trollish posts of my past, that was uncalled for, and undeserved, and its been bothering me for a while.

Now, back on topic... If the test of Toyota is how they responded, then they failed.

To start, they designed a system, and shipped it in millions of cars, where the power brakes did not function when the accelerator pedal was fully engaged. There's no excuse for that.

Then, when problems started happening, they responded by trying to sweep it under the rug and avoid responsibility. When the cop was killed in California, they blamed the dealer for improperly installing the wrong floormats. Just last week, they were claiming there were no problems with the software, when there was growing evidence there is, and now they have acknowledged it. Heck, even Woz couldn't get them to take his complaints about his Prius' accelerator getting stuck.

Sorry, but from what I've seen, Toyota has handled this terribly.

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Their response is still far better than Ford's was to the Pinto and Explorer problems, and it beats their response to my Explorer's problems all hollow. Toyota is acknowledging and accepting responsibility for the problem, and that's something Ford has never, ever done.

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Points taken. I read a little more about it this afternoon, too, and it tempered by overreaction a bit.

Everyone can almost always do better, but they are still doing better than the other guys.

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And as for the trollish posts...they must not have been too bad, since your name doesn't stick in my mind. In any event, apology accepted, with thanks.

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I don't think it was that bad either, but I was a dick and you didn't do anything to deserve it. Thanks for letting me get square. :p

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